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No.Rec. 147 



THE QUICKSANDS OF ^ 
WIDER USE '^ 

A Discussion of Two Extremes 
In Community-Center Administration 



BY 
CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY 




Reprinted from The Playground 
of September, 1916 



DEPARTMENT OF RECREATION 

RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 

130 East 22nd Street 

New York City 



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THE QUICKSANDS OF WIDER USE' 



Clarence Arthur Perry, Associate Director, Department of Recrea- 
tion, Russell Sage Foundation, New York City 

It is my purpose to point out this morning two or three 
treacherous spots in the path of the wider use movement. They 
are places where unwary workers will find the footing exceedingly 
bad, where without great care they may indeed be completely en- 
gulfed. These quicksands consist of schemes or theories of wider 
use or — as I prefer to call it — community center administration 
which at the present time enjoy considerable vogue in current dis- 
cussions of the movement. It is not that either of these schemes, 
or plans, is wholly impractical or wholly wrong. The danger, as 
I see it, lies in the fact that they are incomplete, that they each 
tell a truth but not the whole truth, that each by itself lays an 
emphasis that is misleading. 

There is no intention in this paper to discuss the origin of 
the notions which we shall attempt to evaluate. They were 
formulated by men to whom the movement is vastly indebted, with- 
out whose imagination, enthusiasm and industry the movement 
would still be quiescent and but dimly conscious of its large destiny. 
If we succeed in uncovering defects in the plans these leaders have 
put forth we must always remember that we are considering the 
defects of somebody's virtues. 

The first of these theories we shall consider is the one that 
lays emphasis upon an exclusively official management of the 
school center. According to this scheme a community center is 
created by act of government. In its management no recognition 
is given to any private, sectarian or exclusive group. Whatever 
is done administratively is done by some official of the board of 
education or of the municipal government. 

This plan of administration is presented to us in tWot forms, 
the first being that in which the schoolhouse doors are simply 
opened to the public by the authorities and no staff put in charge. 
This is exemplified in the Wisconsin statute which compels school 
boards to open their buildings whenever desired by a non-partisan, 
non-sectarian, non-exclusive association. The main difficulty with 
this plan is that under its operation community centers are not 
vigorously promoted. Fortunately there is some experience to 

*An address delivered in New York City on July 5, 191 6, at a section meet- 
ing of the National Education Association. 



point to. During the season of 1914-15, according to a report 
issued by the University of Wisconsin, the meetings in some 500 
school buildings, which were denominated community centers, 
averaged less than one for every two weeks of the school year. 
Now I don't know how it is out in Wisconsin, but according to my 
notion of a community center, a school building which is not open 
oftener than once a fortnight on the average is hardly entitled to 
be considered in that class. Be that as it may, however, the 
promoters of school extension work in Wisconsin were themselves 
not satisfied with the amount of activity this law stimulated be- 
cause they attempted, without success unfortunately, to amend 
it so as to provide the services of a paid secretary in schools which 
were desired as centers. In its present form the section of the 
Wisconsin law (Section 553D) to which I have referred has the 
educational value of recording the State's desire that all school 
buildings be considered discussion centers, but it does not provide 
the machinery for effectually translating that desire into fact. An- 
other section of the Wisconsin law (Section 435 E), however, pro- 
vides that the question of levying taxes for community center work 
shall be made the subject of a referendum. Under this section 
Milwaukee, for example, is carrying on an intensive school center 
work of unusual efficiency along recreational lines but it has never 
laid much emphasis upon civic and forum activities in its programs. 

In California there is a school law which declares, in effect, 
that hereby a civic center is established at each and every public 
schoolhouse. That law was enacted in 19 13, and yet one does 
not hear that it has so far been responsible for a tremendous amount 
of activity in the California school centers. If it had produced 
much I am sure we should have heard more about it. v The con- 
clusion of everyone who examines the facts is that just opening 
school buildings does not transform them into community centers. 

Wfc tome now to the second case under the exclusively official 
form bf community center management, that in which a paid staff 
is employed to administer all the activities. This plan has been 
tried in a number of cities and found to be not wholly satisfactory. 
Experience shows that it is a form of administration which suits 
certain types of activity and not others. Through a paid staff 
selected on a civil service basis organized classwork, public lectures, 
reading rooms, athletic games and juvenile activities generally may 
be fairly well administered. But the traditional official form of ad- 
ministration shows short-comings when it attempts to handle many 



other activities, particularly those for adults and the older adoles- 
cents. I refer to such activities as amateur theatricals, choruses, 
celebrations, social affairs, public discussions, and mutual improve- 
ment societies. 

The fundamental difficulty with the purely official type of 
administration is that it is psychologically not adapted to the ma- 
terial upon which it is supposed to work. Take, for example, the 
Wisconsin law that is based upon the assumption that a non-parti- 
san, non-sectarian, non-exclusive association can exist, or ever has 
existed. In school center work we do not compel people's attend- 
ance. Of a necessity we deal with voluntary groups. Every vol- 
untary grouping of individuals must necessarily stand for certain 
particular things and because they stand for those things they are, in 
a sense, partisan. Being bound together by a common aim they 
automatically and really, even though not in a legalistic sense, ex- 
clude all persons who are not animated by the same purpose. Even 
the body of citizens who rub elbows once or twice a year at the 
ballot-box is in a way an exclusive organization. It rigidly ex- 
cludes minors, convicts, Orientals, all citizens of other countries, 
and in some benighted states even 'educated females. A non- 
partisan, non-sectarian, non-exclusive association is simply a nonen- 
tity, and any system of community center administration that is 
adapted solely for the handling of such bodies is destined to an 
assured place among the ranks of the unemployed. 

It seems axiomatic that, since community centers are neces- 
sarily going to be mainly leisure-time resorts, the machinery by 
which they are run must be adapted to the handling of leisure- 
time activities. What is the chief characteristic of the forms in 
which we moderns spend our leisure time? When I play chess, I 
usually join a club. If I want to study drawing I join an art stu- 
dents' league. When I play basket ball I join a team. When I want 
to act I join a dramatic club. When I want to participate in 
social dancing under the best circumstances I take out a member- 
ship in a club having similar tastes and similar standards. When as 
a taxpayer I want to talk over during the evening affairs that touch 
me and my neighbors I join the taxpayers' association, a body which 
excludes all those who do not pay their dues and go through some 
formula of membership. The great outstanding fact of our mod- 
ern leisure-time life is that it is almost entirely carried on through 
groups, through some form of voluntary association. We live very 
little as individuals at the present time. The man who plays 



the lone game is limited to solitaire, reading or sitting in the 
park. Any form of community center machinery which does not 
take into consideration this fundamental fact of group life cannot 
function well. The theory of an exclusively official school center 
system does not fit the facts of social life. 

Another theory of wider use development whose perilous as- 
pects I wish to lay before you came into being through a violent 
reaction from the exclusively official system we have just been dis- 
cussing. This second scheme lays all its emphasis upon the private 
association as the ideal foundation for school center administration. 
The slogans of those who follow this ideal are "freedom," "self-sup- 
port," and "cooperation." Their plans are based upon distrust of 
governmental machinery and provide specifically against official in- 
terference. In the scheme of the private-group management there 
are also two cases, one in which the private association is not allowed 
to raise funds through the school center activities, and a second 
case in which the private association maintains certain activities for 
the specific purpose of raising funds. 

Considering now case one, the great likelihood here is that a 
center managed by an organization which has no power to hold 
pay entertainments will not amount to much. Without funds no 
paid workers can be employed. The members of the association, 
all having business or home occupations, will naturally not be will- 
ing to devote much time or energy to the school center work. Under 
such auspices a one-night-a-week center carrying on a minimum 
program is possible. Under expert even though volunteer super- 
vision two-night-a-week centers have been carried on by neighbor- 
hood groups, but the permanency of centers under such auspices is 
never assured. As a matter of fact, most of the advocates of the 
private management theory do not believe that school center work 
is feasible unless the managing body has the power to develop 
funds* «J±jrough the school center activities, and we will therefore 
give tius plan no further consideration. 

Coming now to case two in which the private association is 
permitted to raise funds, we find that here the managing body 
has greater vitality and is able to accomplish more work. An or- 
ganization which can raise and expend funds has the sap of life 
running in its veins. Since much of the routine work can under 
these circumstances be delegated to a paid staff, committee posi- 
tions and officerships carry a certain amount of prestige and effi- 
cient persons to fill these positions are more easily found. There 



are, however, several dangers which, from the nature of the case, 
always threaten an enterprise of this character. The first tendency 
of such an organization will be to fill up its program with those ac- 
tivities which bring in revenue and to neglect those which do not. 
Since games, athletics, club w r ork and other activities particularly 
adapted to juvenile needs are expensive, the tendency will be to 
omit these features of community center work, features which in 
congested districts are perhaps most helpful to large elements of the 
population. A second dangerous tendency will be that of lowering 
the standards and environment of the activities which are offered 
to the level of those in the commercial amusement establishments 
with which they will necessarily be competing. This tendency is 
most noticed in connection with motion picture and social dancing 
enterprises. Since, how T ever, one of the strongest reasons in the 
minds of many people for having school centers is that of furnish- 
ing finer and more wholesome types of amusement than those to 
be found under commercial auspices, any tendency to lower the 
standards in the school center will bring down sharp criticism upon 
the enterprise. 

A third temptation which will naturally beset successful asso- 
ciations will be that of employing the funds they have raised for 
purposes which might be construed as more advantageous to the 
members of the association than to the neighborhood as a whole, 
the temptation, for example, to give expensive banquets and to hold 
outings whose public welfare character is not immediately obvious 
to outsiders. Sooner or later such events are bound to bring criti- 
cism from the taxpayers on the score that public property is being 
used for private gain or advantage. 

A fourth danger lies in the very success which private asso- 
ciations sometimes have. If such an association does succeed it is 
generally due to the energy and ability of one or two of the leading 
members. Their efforts gain them more or less of a reputation in 
the neighborhood. The prestige thus acquired is bound to excite 
the envy of other individuals and to bring about sooner or later a 
struggle within the group over leadership. In some cases rivalry 
will develop between the group which is in the ascendancy and a 
similar group on the outside. In any case contests are almost in- 
evitable, and they will result either in changes in the management, 
thus imperiling its success, or in squabbles which will bring scandal 
and public criticism. The fact that membership in such an organ- 
ization may be open to every one in the community does not obviate 



the difficulty. Only those people will join it who find the present 
members congenial. All of the dangers which I have mentioned 
are inherent in the private association management. They are prac- 
tically inevitable, if the associations are uncontrolled. Of course 
outside of the school buildings many voluntary associations have 
lived and flourished but the private association working upon public 
property has a more difficult situation. Even if it should ever 
develop sufficient ability to be completely self-supporting — some- 
thing it has not done so far — it is questionable whether it could 
ever convince its environing community that it was thoroughly 
representative of all its interests and prejudices. 

If, then, neither the private-group management nor the strictly 
official administration will work, what is the solution of the prob- 
lem of wider use administration? Obviously the answer is to be 
found in a combination of the two, in a form of governmental 
machinery that is especially designed to cultivate group-life. A 
thoroughly practical community center administration must be 
based upon the policy which recognizes the nature of the private 
group, which knows how it lives, what kind of nourishment it requires, 
and in what kind of environment it will flourish. The voluntary 
association is a plant. The manner in which it shall live can rarely 
be laid down from without. The laws of its life are internal ones, 
knowledge of which may be acquired by observation but not ar- 
rived at intuitively. 

Take, for example, a choral society composed of men and 
women living in a school neighborhood. Such an organization 
would not exist long, upon a purely official basis, i. e. f under an 
arrangement in which the leader was appointed and paid by the 
government and the members received their benefits without mak- 
ing any direct return, either in fees or service. Experience shows 
that without contracting some sort of obligation the members will 
not persist in regular attendance at rehearsals and without regu- 
larity the society's productions will not attain public success. 
Neither will the members make the progress in musical develop- 
ment which they had anticipated. If organized on the basis wherein 
they pay their own leader, on the other hand, the dawdlers are 
automatically excluded, the work of each member is more serious, 
and the leader is stimulated to greater exertions by the more 
direct relation of reward to effort. On this basis the members 
naturally expect to participate in the choice of their leader and 
that responsibility also conduces to more efficient organization. 

8 



These reciprocal relationships constitute the bonds which tie such 
a society together and make it a normal, living body. 

What now is the function of a school center director in respect 
to such an organization? He can help to start it by telling about 
the advantages of such a society and how one could be organized. 
He may not say his patrons shall have such a society. If they 
manifest a desire to organize one, he can suggest the names of 
several leaders. If the members are willing to pay the leader's 
salary they will have to be given a say in his selection. By virtue 
of affording the meeting place the center director can make cer- 
tain rules about the use of the room but they cannot be so stringent 
as to prevent the members from singing or accomplishing the ends 
of the organization. Otherwise it will die. Thus the director may 
exercise guidance over the society but he may not substitute his 
will for that of the members within the province of what they 
may rightly consider their own jurisdiction. They must do their 
own living. 

Similarly every club, group or association lives in accordance 
with definite internal principles which may not be violated and the 
organization continue in existence. The skillful director of the 
future will study these inner laws diligently in order that they may 
have unimpeded operation because the success of his work will be 
gauged by the number of these private bodies he has brought into 
life and kept in healthy condition. 

By implication at least I have said that private groups should 
share in the administration of school centers. What I mean is 
this. Each group must be allowed to exercise those responsibilities 
respecting its own activity which are essential to its normal group- 
life. In the case of the choral society just analyzed they consisted 
in choosing the leader, paying his salary and deciding perhaps what 
oratorios or cantatas they would render. These decisions, these 
money arrangements, constitute an important part in the adminis- 
tration of the activity, and it would be an unwise plan that laid 
them upon official shoulders. In the same way every group must 
be allowed to discharge those functions which are essential to its 
existence. 

Is a neighborhood association which purposes to manage all 
the activities of a school center a practicable organization? Who 
can say! I know of none so far that has done the whole thing, 
created itself and then sustained and directed a full program of cen- 
ter activities. The dangers and temptations which threaten such 



an enterprise I have already pointed out. Many of the perils 
mentioned could be avoided if the associations were under the 
tutelage of a competent director. Plants and shrubs are improved 
by pruning and the same treatment may be given to the voluntary 
association provided the pruning is scientific and not annihilatory. 
It is conceivable that an extraordinary, high-minded, and efficient 
group of citizens might exercise entire control over a flourishing 
school center without public criticism for a long period but that 
would be an exceptional association working under exceptional 
circumstances. Personally, I am not contending for complete pri- 
vate association control. I am advocating solely the principle that 
in the manaprnent of school centers there be a clear and hospitable 
recognition of the necessities of group-life and that private organ- 
izations devoted to wholesome purposes be given the widest lati- 
tude that is consistent with their own development, the advance- 
ment of society, and a proper utilization of the premises they are 
permitted to occupy. A community center administrative scheme 
which does not provide for the proper balance of the two prin- 
ciples, official machinery and group-life, is bound to be engulfed 
in the quicksands of impracticability. 

The third and last way of thinking about the wider use 
movement which I wish to bring to your attention is in reality a 
way of not thinking. At the present time the movement is flounder- 
ing in statistics which mean nothing, which tell us nothing about the 
direction in which we are traveling, which furnish us no guidance 
for future administrative changes. What do we find in current 
community center reports? Mainly statistics of attendance. We 
are informed that the average attendance during the season in 
City A was 391, in City B 221, and in City C 580. What help do 
those figures give us? Can we with any certainty let ourselves 
understand that these figures mean different individuals, or must 
we reckon with the fact that in City C the attendance records, by 
the conditions under which they are necessarily taken, must in- 
clude some duplicates? Suppose we are told that the nightly per 
capita cost of school centers in City X was 13c, in City Y, 11c and 
in City Z, 7c. What assistance do those facts give us for the guid- 
ance of our own system unless we have some basis for comparing 
the programs which were carried out in those cities, unless we have 
some good means of assuring ourselves that the attendance records 
upon which the per capita figures were based, were kept in a uni- 
form manner? As a matter of fact, is it possible by any system 

id 



to keep attendance records which will be accurate enough to afford 
per capita cost figures? Indeed would a per capita system be worth 
anything even if it were trustworthy? Should not our thinking 
have progressed far enough by this time to have an answer to that 
question ? 

During the last couple of years several cities have been trying 
different administrative plans. Can any of them show data by 
which one can determine which of the plans tried is the most 
economical? I know of none. Isn't it time for us to begin to take 
our work seriously? Shouldn't we begin to think about methods 
whereby we can obtain reliable data concerning our wider use 
enterprises? Ought we not to adopt soon some means by which we 
can chart our future progress? The objection generally urged is 
the cost, but do we know of any worth while enterprise in the in- 
dustrial or commercial world that goes without adequate book- 
keeping, no matter what it costs? 

In conclusion, must we not face the fact that community 
centers cannot be maintained on a self-supporting basis and that 
any administrative scheme that is worth anything at all is going 
to require funds, and more funds perhaps than have ever been 
appropriated for it in the past? The type of ability required to de- 
velop and supervise private associations is expensive. But we 
must have it. We must recognize the fact that the minimum or- 
ganization required to run a school center will from an absolute 
standpoint seem expensive. The justification for the expenditure 
will be found in the importance its output will have for society. 
We believe in the significance of that output. Why not ask society 
for the requisite funds? Isn't it just this that a sense of decent 
preparedness requires of us for the safeguarding of the future of the 
community center movement? 



ii 



Community Center 
Activities 

BY 

CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY 



A cloth-bound handbook, pocket size, of 112 pages, 
containing information about 1 83 activities which are suit- 
able for school centers, recreation centers, social settlements, 
Y. M. C. A.'s and similar institutions. The book contains 
lists of activities appropriate for 14 special spaces, such 
as auditoriums, gymnasiums, classrooms, etc., as well as a 
collection of sample programs. References are made to 
over 200 books giving technical instructions. 



Price 35 cents postpaid 



DEPARTMENT OF RECREATION 
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 

130 East 22nd Street 
New York City 



